Quote

I've always seen myself for who I am, which is a lot of things.

Viola Davis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Viola Davis
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: August 11
Actress
Film Actor
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Television Producer
St. Matthews
South Carolina
La Viola Davis
Seen
Always
Things

More quotes by Viola Davis

Image
I've always just simply seen myself as an actor. And I believe that it serves me well to just think in terms of my craft. If hypothetically, I saw myself only as a sex symbol, or as some other limited stereotype, I think I would feel like a complete failure.
Viola Davis
Image
I want to span different genres. I want to be able to transform. I want to be able to be sexy, and funny, and quirky, and all the other things that I am. And I feel that the best way that I can achieve that is by producing.
Viola Davis
Image
You can't be hesitant about who you are.
Viola Davis
Image
I think that's why August [Wilson] named her Rose [in Fences] I really do. She's a rose in her sweetness and her kindness and in everything else, even her anger towards the end.
Viola Davis
Image
Anything can be achieved with a good, healthy dose of courage.
Viola Davis
Image
I look back at pictures of myself and I remember thinking, I was so fat when I was growing up. I was 165 pounds when I graduated from high school. I was a mess.
Viola Davis
Image
I want my work to reflect my level of gifts and talent
Viola Davis
Image
I think watching my mom gave me great inspiration, I wish that had been reinforced more verbally. It would have kept me from a lot of pain.
Viola Davis
Image
Self-deprecation is not an answer to keeping one's balance. I think that it's very damaging.
Viola Davis
Image
We grew up in abject poverty. Acting, writing scripts and skits were a way of escaping our environment at a very young age.
Viola Davis
Image
It's not anything that is just perpetuated by White America or just perpetuated by Black America. It's just a cultural understanding that you're just not a part of the equation when it comes to sexuality and I think that people mistake your lack of opportunity with the level of your talent.
Viola Davis
Image
Sometimes you see how humanity can rise above any kind of cultural ills and hate that a person's capacity to love and communicate and forgive can be bigger than anything else.
Viola Davis
Image
And classically not beautiful is a fancy term for saying ugly. And denouncing you. And erasing you.
Viola Davis
Image
You cannot live to please everyone else. You have to edify, educate and fulfill your own dreams and destiny.
Viola Davis
Image
I guess they say, Necessity is the mother of invention because you have two stark choices when you find yourself in a really desperate situation. You can either fold and cave-in to it or you can become really passionate about getting out of it.
Viola Davis
Image
At the end of the day, nobody can tell you how to tackle failure or how to handle change. The world is very good at encouraging you to go along with the status quo and at basking in your successes.
Viola Davis
Image
No matter what, people don't think of me for glamorous parts. I'll go to an audition or a meeting in a pretty dress, and they still think of me as depressed or embattled. Hopefully, that will change.
Viola Davis
Image
Even when I go shopping, I don't shop as a woman. The only time I shop is when I need something, and I'm in and out in less than 30 minutes, so I have no energy to look at 50 million gowns and styles and make sketches and think about heels. I'm not girly in that way. I'm relying on the stylist to do 99 percent of the work.
Viola Davis
Image
The sentiment that I had a little trouble with was the idea that, You change the school, you change the community. I couldn't wrap my mind around that.
Viola Davis
Image
I would love to be remembered as a person who used her life to inspire others in any way, shape or form.
Viola Davis